A gaggle of activists from Barcelona traveled to D.C. earlier this month to advertise their metropolis’s bid to host WorldPride in 2030.
Pleasure Barcelona Vice President Maria Giralt, WorldPride Barcelona 2030 Mission Supervisor Andoni Ibáñez, and Pleasure Barcelona’s Roger Presseguer on June 4 offered the town’s bid at a José Andrés-catered occasion on the Spanish Cultural Middle in Northwest Washington.
Catalonia LGBTI+ Public Insurance policies Normal Director Alberto Lacasta, Barcelona Metropolis Commissioner Javier Rodríguez, and Barcelona Turisme Director Rosa Bada traveled to D.C. with the activists. Giralt, Ibáñez, and Presseguer visited the Washington Blade’s workplace on June 6.
“We supposed to transmit the spirit of our candidacy,” mentioned Giralt.
Giralt famous 39 LGBTQ teams in Barcelona and all through Catalonia help the bid. The Catalonian authorities and Spain’s Tourism Institute, generally known as Turespaña, have additionally backed it.
“Spain and the ministry have helped us rather a lot,” mentioned Giralt.
Madrid, the Spanish capital, hosted WorldPride in 2017. The activists’ journey to D.C. coincided with WorldPride 2025 that occurred within the nation’s capital.
Spanish Sen. Carla Antonelli, who’s transgender, is amongst those that participated within the WorldPride 2025 Human Rights Convention. Turespaña additionally had a sales space on the Capital Pleasure Competition.
Subsequent 12 months’s WorldPride will happen in Amsterdam, whereas Cape City will host WorldPride 2028. Montreal, London, and Bangkok are the three different cities which have bid to host WorldPride 2030.
InterPride, the group that coordinates WorldPride occasions, will announce the successful bid in 2026.
“What higher event than to return to Washington to current (the bid) and to additionally join with different nations all over the world,” mentioned Giralt. “This approval is essential, particularly at the moment when there’s a wave, a drift, towards the acute proper, and we imagine it is rather necessary for all of the world’s greats to be current, to be clear that the combat. The resistance should proceed.”
Spain’s first LGBTQ rights march occurred in Barcelona on June 26, 1977, lower than two years after long-time dictator Gen. Francisco Franco died. Spain is now one of many world’s most LGBTQ-friendly nations.
“What we’re making an attempt to do from Barcelona is to get well a little bit of this wrestle’s origins,” Giralt informed the Blade.
‘A historic second to be in Washington’
WorldPride 2025 occurred lower than 5 months after the Trump-Vance administration took workplace.
Egale Canada, one among Canada’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organizations, in February introduced its members wouldn’t take part in WorldPride or every other occasion within the U.S. due to the White Home’s insurance policies. Equality Australia in April issued a journey advisory for transgender and nonbinary individuals who plan to go to the U.S. in response to President Donald Trump’s government order that directed the federal authorities to acknowledge solely “two genders, female and male” and banned the State Division from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, the co-founder of UK Black Pleasure generally known as Girl Phyll, spoke on the WorldPride 2025 Human Rights Convention’s opening plenary nearly after the U.S. revoked her eligibility to enter the nation with no visa as a result of she had traveled to Cuba earlier this 12 months.
The U.S. Customs and Border Safety web site notes the State Division on Jan. 12, 2021, designated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. The CBP web site notes that with “restricted exceptions, a traveler who’s discovered to have visited Cuba on or after this date will not be eligible for journey underneath the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) utilizing an Digital System for Journey Authorization (ESTA) and should apply for a visa to journey to the USA.”
Ibáñez informed the Blade that he, Giralt, and Presseguer felt it was necessary for them to journey to the U.S. for WorldPride.
“We really feel that it was a historic second to be in Washington celebrating and preventing for our rights inside the context of Trump,” mentioned Ibáñez.
“It was essential for us to return right here and share our values and declare subsequent to your (White Home) and say, hey, we’re right here and we’re by no means going to go away,” added Ibáñez.
